Wellbeing
The heart of Danish communities: Florrie Cassel...
When we hear about childhood in Denmark, it is often with descriptions of children dressed in rain suits, freely exploring woodlands and whittling with sharp knives beside campfires. There are stories of babies peacefully sleeping in prams, unfazed by snow and subzero temperatures. It’s all true. Danish children are renowned for their deep connection to the outdoors. Time spent out in all weathers is a fundamental aspect of their upbringing. Yet, amid these wonderful and freezing experiences, another (warmer) backdrop to Danish childhood exists: public libraries. In England, visits to the local library with my children were brief. We’d dash in, attend a rhyme time session, select a couple of books, and be out the door within 20 minutes. Any need for a snack or a run about prompted a swift exit, and there might have been somewhere to change a nappy, but I never found it. We relocated to...
The heart of Danish communities: Florrie Cassell's love for local libraries
When we hear about childhood in Denmark, it is often with descriptions of children dressed in rain suits, freely exploring woodlands and whittling with sharp knives beside campfires. There are...
Nourishing spring soups and teas with nettles
Spring is a busy time for hedgerow herbalists. The riverbanks and meadows are bursting with green leafy delights and the house becomes full of drying bundles of herbs and jars of herbs macerating in alcohol or infusing in almond oil in preparation to make remedies. These include nettles, dandelion, comfrey and cleavers (‘sticky soldiers’). Plants ready to harvest each season often reflect the health and wellbeing needs of people at that time. Spring provides a wealth of detoxifying, nutrient-rich plants great for ridding the body of post-winter sluggishness and conditions that may arise in spring. Hay fever often begins at this time and can last throughout the summer. I was taken on a weekend break one spring to a beautiful setting: a log cabin in the middle of a magical wood. It wasn’t long before my eyes started streaming and puffing up. My chest became tight, making breathing difficult, and...
Nourishing spring soups and teas with nettles
Spring is a busy time for hedgerow herbalists. The riverbanks and meadows are bursting with green leafy delights and the house becomes full of drying bundles of herbs and jars...
Reflections on Healing: triggers and glimmers
There is little doubt that you will have come across the word ‘trigger’ over the last few years. In short, triggers are cues around us that signal to our system a potential threat. They can be obvious, but they can also be so subtle we might not even be aware of them, yet we suddenly find ourselves sweating with anxiety for no apparent reason. Now more than ever before, the subject of mental health and trauma awareness is in the public realm and in government focus, and that can only be a good thing. The understanding of how events from our past can impact our emotional responses in the present is becoming widely discussed in mainstream culture, enabling much more understanding about how to identify and work with our trigger points. Trauma to some degree happens to all of us at some point, and it can teach us survival skills....
Reflections on Healing: triggers and glimmers
There is little doubt that you will have come across the word ‘trigger’ over the last few years. In short, triggers are cues around us that signal to our system...
How to compassionately witness and heal your in...
The buck stops here. With me. This far, no further. This promise committed me to a journey beyond my wildest imagination, oftentimes beyond my limits and along the very edges of sanity. I seem to be given to these grand romantic pledges to the universe - must be the well developed drama queen in me! When my incestuous history finally revealed itself after a bang to the head, I’d long been a woman engaged in the healing struggle to emerge from what I already knew to be a difficult childhood. I carried the emotional and mental traumas in a way that I hoped meant business. I wanted different for my children; a family hearth rooted in loving kindness built by adults whole and present in themselves and each other. Such an easy wish on the rainbow; the pot of gold an endless search within and without for the resources to...
How to compassionately witness and heal your inner child
The buck stops here. With me. This far, no further. This promise committed me to a journey beyond my wildest imagination, oftentimes beyond my limits and along the very edges...
What foods support natural fertility?
Preparing the body to create and nurture a baby is a wonderful time – the very beginning of a new and significant life journey. In an ideal world it is good to start nourishing your body for conception at least 3–4 months before you start trying to conceive. This is because it takes about that time for the sperm and eggs to mature before they are released. That said, it is never too late to start. One of the primary nutrients is fat. Essential fatty acids are vital for healthy hormones. Avocados can be spread on toast or added to a shake every day, and you can enjoy mackerel, sardines, herring and trout about three times a week. Bigger fish such as tuna may have a high mercury content so are best avoided. Other foods rich in essential fatty acids include ground or soaked flax seeds, walnuts and hemp seeds....
What foods support natural fertility?
Preparing the body to create and nurture a baby is a wonderful time – the very beginning of a new and significant life journey. In an ideal world it is...
Medicine Making: The Art of Herbal Remedy Creation
The ground is stirring, spring is upon us, and wanderers of wild spaces are starting to turn their minds once more to the art of medicine making with plants. Medicine making ranges from simple to complex, depending on your level of knowledge, experience and willingness to have a go. It can be as simple as drying out herbs to store for teas, to as complex as distilling aromatic herbs to create herbal waters and essential oils. We thought another Seed SistAs’ series was due, and in this one, we’ll focus on the art of herbal remedy creation. In this issue, we start with an overview of medicine making and what is involved. Then in each subsequent column, we will look in more depth at some preparations and how to make them. Things to consider Why are you making the remedy? If you are making the remedy for children, you will...
Medicine Making: The Art of Herbal Remedy Creation
The ground is stirring, spring is upon us, and wanderers of wild spaces are starting to turn their minds once more to the art of medicine making with plants. Medicine...
Exercise in pregnancy and new motherhood: pelvi...
Rehana Jawadwala answers your questions on exercise in pregnancy and new motherhood I have just given birth to my second son and I am keen to improve my pelvic floor strength as I have suffered with mild incontinence since the birth of my first child and throughout my recent pregnancy. I try to do some exercises but I tend to forget about them. I feel I need to do something as I don’t want to be suffering with this for years to come. Do you have any advice about what I should be doing and how often? Kay, Cheshire. Congratulations! You have a baby and another child to think about; pelvic floor is hardly going to get a priority slot. Please don’t worry too much as research shows that the majority of women fully recover from a weakened pelvic floor after pregnancy and vaginal birth, with normal day-to-day activities. During...
Exercise in pregnancy and new motherhood: pelvic floor
Rehana Jawadwala answers your questions on exercise in pregnancy and new motherhood I have just given birth to my second son and I am keen to improve my pelvic floor...
A Year in Nature: Winter
With the arrival of winter, Emine Kali Rushton hankers for fire, circles and cocoa... It’s the strangest thing: since life ‘returned to normal’ (“Ha!” my spirit cries, “Who are you kidding?”), and the pace of the everyday picked up, winter arrives in my home not with a sense of dread, but absolute surrender and, if I am honest, quite a bit of relief too. We’re no longer expected to be ‘out’ all the time. This is the season when it feels as though I am granted permission to burrow under blankets with books, drink hot cocoa every night, go up for an extra-early night of nesting and resting (the earlier darkening a gift to anyone feeling depleted) and take as many rain checks as I like – choosing instead a family movie afternoon with cinnamon-and-sea-salt popcorn and a heavy duvet, the ideal rainy-day antidote to the week’s busyness and movement....
A Year in Nature: Winter
With the arrival of winter, Emine Kali Rushton hankers for fire, circles and cocoa... It’s the strangest thing: since life ‘returned to normal’ (“Ha!” my spirit cries, “Who are you...
The benefits of connecting with older generations
My daughter heads out of the door, excited to show her friend Val some photos from our travels and to discuss some plans for the next street party. They can chat for an eternity, laugh and giggle and usually share some tea and biscuits. Many of my daughter’s friends in the street are over 60, and at 70-something Val is one of them. In today’s society, disconnection between different generations is common, and sharing valuable skills, knowledge and friendship between young and old is rare. Instead of our elders being regarded as wise, a fount of knowledge of old ways and history, they are sadly all too often seen as just ‘old’, a burden, frail and forgotten. Some years ago we only knew our immediate neighbours and a couple of other people in the street, but after a chance encounter and a conscious effort to connect we have developed lasting...
The benefits of connecting with older generations
My daughter heads out of the door, excited to show her friend Val some photos from our travels and to discuss some plans for the next street party. They can...
A Year in Nature: Autumn
As the Wheel of the Year turns once more, Emine Kali Rushton leads us into the crisp, clear mornings and sweetest harvests of autumn... Ah, autumn. A time to let go. Slow down. Release. Savour. Our spring seeds are now fully-grown fruits. Abundance. Richness. Reaping what we have sown. This season, my nature journal is ablaze. This is the time when my family and I are most likely to venture out on long, meandering walks after lunch. Something about those golden canopies and leaf-lined paths beckons the inner child within us all: ‘Come dance, roll, play, delight.’ How many of us have fondest memories of scooping up armfuls of jewel-coloured leaves and tossing them about our heads? I love the autumn images you see on social media – the fruits of a forager’s walk laid out across the kitchen table, colours ebbing from blazing ruby to honeyed amber. Our tree...
A Year in Nature: Autumn
As the Wheel of the Year turns once more, Emine Kali Rushton leads us into the crisp, clear mornings and sweetest harvests of autumn... Ah, autumn. A time to let...